Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (Mouthmark): 10

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I have no idea how and why I added this poetry collection to my TBR since I rarely read anything in verse. However, I am thankful it happened because I would have missed an extraordinary experience. I’ve never been more touched, saddened and humbled by any poetry before. Most authors that I tried left me indifferent. There were a few that I liked but nothing comes even close to what I felt while reading Warsan Shire. Home itself becomes the speaking voice in st. 8, telling its people to “ leave, run away from me now” because it is no longer the place they grew up in, the land they belong to. The conclusion is a bitter one: “I dont know what I've become but i know that anywhere is safer than here”. All of these issues are woven into this very slim book of poetry. And somehow, Warsan makes it work. The collection doesn't feel overburdened by its themes. Rather, it feels urgent and crucial. Like I said before, some of the poems were extremely hard to read and elicited very visceral emotions from me. I had to shut my eyes, I felt like vomiting. It made me angry at all of the injustices and horrors that the women in Warsan's life had to face. After stating that “ no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark” from which you run only “when you see the whole city running as well” (st. 1) the speaker describes how dramatically home has changed: it has become unrecognisable ( the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body), so dangerous that it “won’t let you stay” (st. 2).

What we never see, however, is how it makes some people’s minds fidget and hearts sink, including my own. For me, Mother’s Day is revisiting the five stages of emotional distress, yearning yet mourning the perfect mother-daughter relationship that never was. Did you tell people that songs weren’t the same as a warm body or a soft mouth? Miriam, I’ve heard people using your songs as prayer, begging god in falsetto. You were a city exiled from skin, your mouth a burning church.” I was casually strolling by one of my friend's profile when I stumbled upon a poem. And it's titled For Women Who Are Difficult To Love. After reading and rereading it, I hopped on to Youtube to find a reading of it. And I did. I listened to it, again, and I fell in love with it, all over again. I can't tell you what I felt while I listened to it, it was like food to my soul. And those last lines...simply eye-watering and strengthening. So, Hayat didn't really recommend this to me directly, but I feel like she did and I'm so grateful for finding this poem(and writer) through her.

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In the poem "Ugly", she speaks to a mother (maybe her mother?) who has a daughter who is considered ugly because she "reminded them of war." In the poem, Warsan reprimands the mother: You are her mother. Shire was born in Kenya in 1988 to Somali parents who migrated to the UK and settled in London the following year after fleeing from the civil war in Somalia. Her upbringing and schooling took place in Britain.

The summer my cousins return from Nairobi, we sit in a circle by the oak tree in my aunt’s garden. They look older. Amel’s hardened nipples push through the paisley of her blouse, minarets calling men to worship.” One of my favorite poems in this collection is called "Beauty". In it, Warsan describes how her older sisters "soaps between her legs" and "stole / the neighbour's husband, burnt his name into her skin." She recounts her sister's "shameful" behaviour, since her sister loves sex and finding pleasure where it offers itself to her. I like the poem because it feels so real. I can imagine Warsan's relationship to her sister. I see the two of them in their flat when reading this poem. I know how Warsan must've felt as a younger sister. Excited, confused, envious, judgmental. It's 4 a.m. and she winks at me, bending over the sink,Tell me this does not remind you of all the refugees that have fled and are still fleeing from Syria, Somalia, Eritrea, Cuba, Mexico, China…

The poetry I read is a bit of a mixed bag. I have collections by Rabbie Burns, Edgar Allen Poe, Banjo Patterson and e.e.cummings. I like what I like but there is poetry which I know is great that really doesn't do anything for me...Allen Ginsberg for example. This poetry collection is perfect for those that have experienced these events, but it raises enough questions for those that have not and simply wish to know what others have had the misfortune to experience. For those worried they will feel like aliens when reading about events unknown to them, this will not do such a thing, it will instead draw the reader in, verse by verse.Poet, activist, editor and teacher, Warsan Shire is a spoken-word artist whose poetry, usually performed publicly, connects gender, war, sex and cultural assumptions, giving a voice to the displaced and acting as a healing agent for the trauma of exile and suffering. Her best known poem, Home, has touched a nerve among people and helped understanding of the refugee crisis.